Living To Tell The Tale > The Online Diary > April 2004
OK - there won't be any more entries after this, until After Eastbourne. It's a strange feeling of nerves and excitement, trying to prepare and not really knowing how, having to pack but not knowing what's needed, what kind of clothes the weather will require, and all the rest. To say nothing of what resources we might need: books, CDs, CD or tape players, costumes - yes costumes! - for the dramatic stuff. The thrill of sensing that actually I'll have an opportunity to Tell Stories! And all the time still having to think with half the mind about what still needs to be sorted out, what plans have to be made for Afterwards, do we need to cancel the milk? and all those things.
One of those extreme days. Conducting the burial of a baby who died at 10 hours old. A premature twin, whose sister is still hanging on to life. All those emotions raging for the young parents and all their family: grief, elation, anxiety, hope, joy, wondering: why? what might have been?
And then back to try to prepare for Eastbourne: talks to give while there, tidying up, trying to remember all the things that have to be put in place in order to go there.
Attending an in-service training day on Motivation, the things that energise us, etc. It doesn't tell me much that is radically new, but - like all these things - reminds me what I already know. If I want to be able to develop my ministry in the direction of what I really want to do (Storytelling) but without leaving where I am now, I'm going to have to learn to be a whole lot more proactive; but this runs clean contrary to my other major motivation which is laziness, or inertia. At the same time, what I want to do is the thing which yields real passion and energy. So here we have a paradox.
The first flush of spring seems to have gone, with the hot weather we had over the weekend. The riot of red and yellow tulips in the garden is looking a bit sad and tattered, the cherry blossom is fading, many of the leaves look as if they've been out for weeks. Yet it was only on Sunday that I was still treading on the sticky buds of horse chestnut on the path outside Elsfield church. Those leaves, at any rate, seem to go from tiny buds to full-out leaves within hours. Such power of life. Unbelievable.
One of the Changing Attitude people on Saturday was waxing passionate about the environment; she had seen a report that within 40 years the Himalayan glaciers will have disappeared because of global warming, creating catastrophic water shortages throughout the whole of Asia. And what then? The problem is, we cannot imagine the effects of that sort of disaster, any more than we can begin to imagine how to prevent it. I'm not convinced that, even if Blair and Bush and Co. had the political will to do it, they would have the power to curb the powers of multinational big business.
Will our children's children even see spring, the riot of red and yellow, green and gold?
Not long before we're off to Eastbourne for the Celebration of Faith at St John's, Meads. Next Saturday, in fact. Between now and then there's a host of things to be done, from the practical (doing the laundry and ironing, deciding what to pack, cancelling the milk) to the spiritual (praying for it all, preparing talks, learning all the stories I might be asked to tell, but have forgotten). And, almost surreally, there is the Annual Parochial Church Meeting to conduct along the way. A reminder that the church's housekeeping is always a necessary companion to the mission without which it cannot live.
Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the ordination of the first women as priests in the Church of England. Every parish church in the diocese was encouraged to have a woman to preach, and in our case we were able to invite one to celebrate also. Anne thus presided and preached, and I enjoyed the luxury of taking a back (or side) seat.
We also commissioned the team who will be going to Eastbourne next Saturday to share in the Celebration of Faith at St John's, Meads. A nerve-wracking prospect for most of us. All of us.
Started the day with the Men's Breakfast: it sounds a terribly reactionary and non-PC kind of activity, to be setting up events in the church's diary that are just for men, but it does seem to be popular and useful. Perhaps it's to do with men's general (alleged) loss of self-image, confidence, etc. At any rate, in a world where men don't have the relationships with other men that the workplace, pub, football terraces or whatever used to provide, maybe it is that the Church needs to do something to supply something of the lack.
An excellent breakfast cooked by Tim, our professional chef. He has a liking for black pudding, so no one gets past the serving hatch without some on his plate, along with the bacon, egg, sausage and tomato. Then Wing Commander Mike talks about his career in the RAF, while over breakfast I had a long conversation with another Mike about sexuality. I thought for a moment about how the report to Alison would go, if she asked (she didn't) 'What did you do at the Men's Breakfast?' 'Oh, well, you know dear: listened to a talk about aeroplanes, and talked about sex ...'
I went on to Oriel College to talk to the local group of Changing Attitude about how I changed my mind about the Church's teaching on homosexuality. (cf. My sermon of last June 29.) This seemed to go OK. I ended up having a late drink and lunch with three of them at the Head of the River, which was heaving with people, it took over an hour to get any food, and then it was only two bowls of chilli nachos, and we were sitting in the sun getting roasted. (Summer having taken us by surprise as it does.) I put a knotted handkerchief on my head, as I hadn't brought a hat. Well, look: we were talking about politics by that time, and I had to prove somehow that I really am Old Labour.
No delivery at all today. I think we were doing better when they were on strike ...
Sermon writing. Also writing that article about 'What's In Your Computer? for the diocesan newspaper. Don't know if they'll take it - it's a bit of a rant.
Postal deliveries continue to bring items posted two or three
weeks ago, that were held up by the strike. I hope nothing really
important has got lost ...
"Your rich uncle Hector is on his deathbed, and wants to change his
will in your favour. Please come and visit him tomorrow ... dated
(three weeks ago). Aaargh!
Job interviews for jobs you are intrigued by but don't particularly need, and aren't sure you want, are probably among the least of life's fearsome experiences. I had one today, and it was great fun, really. An opportunity to meet some good, interesting people on the interviewing panel, and have a sense of really working together with them in a process of discernment of who would be the right person for the job.
P.S. Worry not, gentle reader! (if worrying you be). I am not thinking of quitting my job and moving. The interview in question was about a re-jigging of my present responsibilities, which will now continue un-re-jigged.
I had just noticed this morning that since the Oxford postal strike ended last week, we haven't actually had any mail deliveries, when the postman came. Presumably everyone's efforts were going into sorting the backlog, and since we did have deliveries last week (our postman was not on strike) we weren't considered a priority.
The strike began, apparently, as a protest about workplace bullying and intimidation. And a TV programme today reveals that the Royal Mail suffers a kind of corporate culture of bullying - not by fellow-workers, but by line managers. Somewhere in Yorkshire, a young black postman, who was being victimised by his line managers because of his keenness and conscientiousness, was driven to commit suicide last year. This ought not to be. I have always regarded being a postman as an honourable trade. I'm alarmed to learn of the difficulties some of these gentle people face - and maybe become so badly affected by, that they in turn inflict them on others. Where are the people who will do something about it?
Like the Country Mouse that I have become, I went to Town today. Took the X90 Oxford-London Express, which is cheap and slow as befits the Country Mouse, and marvelled with all my fellow-passengers at the traffic on the M40, all slowing down to ogle an overturned lorry on the other carriageway (and greatly relieved it was the other carriageway). Arrived eventually in Town, I descended underground to try and remember how the Tube works. It doesn't help that I have to take my glasses off and squint at the Tube map on the back of my A to Z, trying to work out which line is which colour. And so, with 2 changes, to Kensington Olympia to visit the Linux User and Developer Expo 2004. Lots of it goes over my head, it's designed for real IT professionals and developers, and 'IT decision makers'. Which I am clearly not; I'm just a user and a would-be advocate. So it's always fun filling in the questionnaires at these stands: how many employees? computers? how many £K per annum for your IT budget? Answers: <10; <10; <£100K. Or, to be more accurate: 1; 1; and (2004) possibly £350.
But I met Telsa at the .Org Village; even recognised her from her photograph, even without the hat - though certainly the large name badge that she, like everyone else, was wearing, helped as well. She was there with the linuxchix people, and the GNOME project, and enthused about the fluffy nature of GNOME 2.6. Which kind of went over my head.
Also talked to Helen on the IBM stand, who was intrigued about a vicar espousing Linux on theological grounds - though not surprisingly knew what I was talking about - and I decided that probably I do have a mission: to convert the C of E to Linux. Might need some help on that one. Perhaps, start with an article for The Door: 'What's In Your Computer? And why Christians should care.'
Back to work in earnest. First of two Annual Parochial Church Meetings, this evening. Apparently I will have been Vicar of Elsfield for ten years on June 1st. It really is true that we get old, if we live long enough.
A parishioner showed me A. N. Wilson's article in the Daily Telegraph, of April 10: Three reasons to stay an Anglican, for all its follies. I reckon, of course, there are lots more than three, but this isn't bad for a start, and for a not always sympathetic paper. Mind you, I can never remember whether A. N. Wilson is a believer or not - he seems to keep changing his mind. Last time I remember, he was throwing in the towel of faith, but now he's back to practising 'n' doubting with the best (or the rest?) of us. God bless him, anyway.
And so home to Oxford. Naturally, the sun appeared to cheer us on our way. Still, that makes us want to go back all the sooner, which is better than thinking, Can we really be bothered?
Eating lunch on Wednesday, Alison was asking me about something which is the kind of thing vicars sometimes have to advise lay members of their congregations about. I said it was a bit difficult to know what advice to give her, when she was my wife.
"But what would you say to me, if I wasn't married to you?" she insisted.
"Will you marry me?" I said. (Quick as a flash, I'm happy to say.)
So, not the most helpful as advice, but definitely the (romantic) right answer; and extra credit points earned to set against the next few husbandly failings.
During the drive home yesterday, we came through some heavy rain, and today it showed no sign of letting up, so we decided to visit Bridgnorth to investigate its charms. It's 20 miles from Church Stretton, a hill town on two levels: Low Town beside the River Severn, once an important port, and High Town above. Interesting buildings including the black-and-white timbered town hall; two large parish churches, one of them redundant since 1976 - the upkeep of the two was beyond the resources of the congregation; a 'New Market' which Pevsner describes, not unjustly, though a tad stuffily, as 'grossly italianate'. We ate a very different lunch from yesterday's, at The Jewel of the Severn: not an exotic Indian restaurant as the name might suggest, but a Wetherspoons establishment. I have never eaten at the like before, though Alison has. We had two meals for £5.25 (choice somewhat limited, to enjoy this offer) and a bottle of wine for £6.99. And it came within minutes. So, for both price and speed of service, it leaves the Harbourmaster at Aberaeron standing. Only the contrast between a 'minted lamb wetherburger', and 'Mediterranean vegetable filo tartlet with garlic sauce and sweet potato chips' remains. The character of the patrons also differed. No Welsh speakers at The Jewel of the Severn; or at least, none strutting their linguistic stuff. Instead, numbers of Midlands parents and children enjoying the last Friday of the Easter holiday, and lunch out with the kids before watching Scoobeedoo 2 at the Majestic.
We find several useful secondhand booksellers: one in Much Wenlock the day before yesterday, where I bought Harry Blamires' The Bloomsday Book and another in Bridgnorth where I bought four John Buchan volumes. Lots of things, then, to add to the TBR pile.
Today we had planned to drive over to visit Mum and Dad near Aberaeron, a drive of about 90 miles door to door. There's no dual carriageway at all, so it's frustrating to be stuck behind huge stone lorries from the quarry, carrying loads of stone to who knows where?
We took the parents out to Aberaeron for some shopping and lunch at the Harbourmaster, which was eventually very nice. Eventually, because it took over an hour before any food appeared. Recommended, then; but not if you're in any kind of hurry to get to anywhere else the same day.
The ascent of Brown Clee Hill (SO595866) this morning. At 540m above sea level, this is the highest hill in Shropshire, and in the whole of England south of the Pennines. So, as the guide book put it, there was something of a pilgrimage factor to our visit. Parked at the Cleobury North picnic area, after a scenic drive from Church Stretton along minor roads. Most of the routes run SW to NE, parallel to Wenlock Edge which is the great geological feature, and we were attempting to drive SE. The sight of another car became something of an adventure. From the car park, a fairly stiff climb up across the picnic area to the beginning of the woods, but after that it was less hard going than many parts of the Long Mynd walks we do. Through managed, coniferous woodland on the lower slopes, then into ancient deciduous woodland with many old beech trees.
In the woods spring is coming. The buds are beginning to appear on the beech and chestnut trees, the silver birch catkins are out, the daffodils are past their best, starting to look bedraggled. We have lexical discussions about what 'beech mast' is, and whether what's lying or may have lain on the ground under these trees is it. Sadly, no dictionary present. Returned to the flat, we find it is the fruit of the beech (or oak, or chestnut) trees. Whatever that may be, it wasn't there any more; the pigs or some such have eaten it all. Lambs are everywhere, too, leading to the usual wondering about how such charming creatures grow up into such dull adults.
The hill is geologically interesting because in the course of human occupation it has been mined extensively. The folding of the strata brought a coal seam to the surface, which was mined by bell pits (digging a shaft and working the seam from the foot of it, as far as was safe, giving a characteristic bell shape); this is the highest (ex-)coalfield in the British Isles. Later there was extensive quarrying from 1906 to 1936 of stone to surface city streets throughout the Midlands. All of this industrial history results in what the book describes, with some exactness, as a 'ravaged summit' to the hill. The latest addition is a set of masts which the OS map only calls a Wireless station, though it looks much more sinister than that.
From the Book again (Andrew Jenkinson's Shropshire Countryside): "..If the day is clear, a view westwards to Cader Idris and eastwards to the Urals - well as far in that direction as curvature of the earth permits." The day wasn't clear. In fact it became so overcast and windy I had to put my hood up to keep warm. Naturally as we descended the hill, the sun came out and the day became quite warm and pleasant.
Had a good lunch at the Panda Chinese Restaurant in Much Wenlock: recommended!
It still feels very strange to wake up in Our Own Place, a property that we actually own, or may one day own. And it also still causes me anxiety, to think of the responsibilities and the costs of owning property: the council tax, the (still undefined) service charge for insurance, external decoration etc. It's some kind of a sermon illustration: when you have nothing at all, there's nothing for you to worry about (except starving to death, of course - so maybe it's not quite having nothing at all that we're talking about.) But the more you possess, the more you are going to lose sleep about keeping it, maintaining it. In the mean time, we see in the estate agent's window that the last remaining flat in the development is still being advertised, and the asking price is about 12% more than we paid last year. Not as big an increase as in Oxford over the same period, but still frightening.
Weather today was dry and mostly cloudy but with occasional sunny spells, so we had a good walk up Townbrook Valley and down Ashes Hollow, lunch at the Ragleth Inn, back along the road from Little Stretton. We are not fit! and the last stretch was hard on the leg muscles. Should sleep well tonight.
Read Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Hard to understand why they keep talking about such a normal lad as if there were something wrong with him. When I said this to Alison, she was of the opinion that I only think that because most men are on the autistic continuum already. It's true; when I was a teenager I was self-absorbed, obsessive, uncommunicative. Even more so than now. But I did have friends. I suppose that's the difference.
Wait just a minute! Are these really things you wouldn't mind your aged mother, or your employer, reading?
After all the Holy Week and Easter Stories, we escape again to The Flat for a few days. Yesterday I was advocating the Online Diary as a therapeutic tool: much better than the introspective personal journal I used to keep when I was depressed, which sometimes helped, but which also, quite often, exacerbated the depression. The whole point of a very public journal is that you can't bare any more of your soul than you would mind your aged mother, or your employer, reading about. And this obliges you to be more outward looking, which is just what the depressive needs. Observation, comment, humour, biting satire even - if you're lucky. But right now, I'm just too tired.
The Story told by today's liturgy, starting at dawn, is the story of a group of women taking spices to visit the grave of their dead Friend, in order to perform the anointing of his body that they were unable to do on the day of his burial. Arriving at the grave, they find his body gone.
And two strangers appear, telling them that he is not dead, but alive, and is going on ahead of them to where they came from in the first place.
Keeping Holy Week and Easter is much less taxing than it used to be - I have learned to pace myself better - but it is still emotionally and physically demanding, draining. I can't think how I have got away with the getting up and speaking without all the preparation I usually like to do. It is true, after all, that something (Someone? the Holy Spirit?) steps in to fill what is lacking in our own strength and resources.
He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
I'm going to be away from this computer for the next five days. I hope to keep writing the Online Diary, but I won't be able to post the entries till Saturday. Till then: the peace of the Risen Christ be with you all.
Reflecting on that TV performance last night. It intrigues me, this whole idea that the interviewer (sweet young woman, with quite the interviewer's knack of asking people questions, and appearing to conduct a sensible conversation with them, about things she really doesn't have a clue about) seemed to be working from the assumption that, because I was a vicar (a 'reverend', was how she had it) I must be against just about everything. So, for example, she was goading me to be critical of the commercialism and consumerism of Easter, as manifested in the selling of 500 million - or however many - Easter eggs, and sending Easter cards; of people who only turn up to church at major festivals, and so on. I resisted stoutly, and I think didn't do a bad job of looking human and welcoming. But really! What a dreadful way for people to think of the clergy. Is that, truly, the impression that has been created for people?
Spent some time today - when I should have been preparing sermons for tomorrow - finally preparing an entry in Wikipedia for Norman Heatley. Then, carried away by this, I added a small entry for Elsfield and a slightly longer one for John Buchan's Greenmantle. Wikipedia is one of the finest examples of what the Web is really for.
This day also tells the Story in so many powerful ways. It is so powerful a story, that I suppose it would be difficult to run out of ways of telling it; the only limit is our imagination. (And I kind of feel we haven't been all that imaginative for a while and could try harder next year.)
We set off from church at 11.30 to walk through the village carrying the cross - a very rough-hewn, splintery one - to meet up with members of other churches in the area in front of the local parade of shops. So we get the sense of our involvement, and the involvement of Christ, in a local community, a very particular place where most people are just getting on with their daily lives, instead of going around with us and following the cross, but many of them know us and wave as we go past. Then we meet one another in front of the shops - the joy of gathering and greeting, for we are friends - the cross brings us together. But this is in the middle of even more business and bustle. The traffic noise goes on all around us as we read the Passion story, sing our hymns, and join in the Taizé chant, 'Jesus, remember me, when you come into your Kingdom' - the words of the penitent thief. In fact, some drivers seem deliberately to rev up their engines more than they need to as they drive past, to make more noise. It sounds like increased hostility to the Christian faith, and talking with one of my colleagues we ask, Why do they bother? Indifference we could understand; but why hostility? What has Jesus - or what have we - ever done to them?
The service goes well and we are glad to have been together sharing prayer and witness. When it finishes we go our separate ways. Some go home for lunch but we return to church for the rest of what was the traditional Three Hours. That is, two hours of reading and meditating on John's Passion. This year the half-hour sections are led by Robert, Rosemary, myself and Anne. The Holy Spirit, as usual, has made sure that what we say harmonises; but how could it be otherwise?
A lighter note: Reading P.G.Wodehouse Psmith in the City, I find
'I wonder why they call this porridge, [Psmith] observed with mild interest. 'It would be far more manly and straightforward of them to give it its proper name.'
As a fellow non-lover of porridge, I have to say, Amen.
On Wodehouse, don't miss Lynne Truss's Times article The funniest writer ever to put words on paper , reproduced - of all places - on the website of the Russian Wodehouse Society.
Disregarded my earlier Memo To Self, and watched That Interview on Six Life. After the shock of seeing myself as others see me (I don't really look like that, do I?!) it wasn't that bad. A bit cautious, measured, trying not to say anything out of line. But what I actually said wasn't at all bad. I thought. Don't know what anyone else may have thought. Assuming anyone else was watching ...
So we come to the anniversary celebration of the Love Feast, a day when the liturgy particularly tells the Story, because it is all about the inauguration of the Lord's Supper that we then proceed to share in, and continue to do so week in week out for the rest of the year. Ideally we would have the Washing of Feet, like many churches. We did this once, a few years ago, and very powerful it is too. But I haven't done it again because it takes a deal of organising, which I can't cope with in the midst of all the other preparations and busy-ness of Holy Week, and because it's quite hard to find volunteers to have their feet washed. Just like the original St Peter who baulked at having Jesus wash his feet.
On such foolish and senseless foundations, are decisions about local liturgical practice taken.
Ah, the heady attraction of media fame! The Diocesan Director of Communication, asked to appear on Six Life, the local TV news programme, delegated the task by giving them my name. So I was asked to go head-to-head with someone from Thornton's Chocolate Cabin, on 'The Real Meaning of Easter'.
Turned up to find we were not going out live, as I had thought, but doing a recorded show which will go out, supposedly live, as a Good Friday Special on, well, Good Friday. Six Life is bathed in a cheerful aura which is either slick professionalism or shambolic amateurism. At least, that's how it looked to me as an outsider. Much as a church service probably looks to someone wandering in. Are the clergy leading the service highly qualified professionals, or bungling amateurs? And the answer is: If you don't know I'm not going to tell you. The main thing is, it's all great fun and the young people working there are keen and happy to have the opportunity to play with these hi-tech toys as they learn their trade.
Hayley from Thornton's has brought a selection of their Easter
range, and is ready to demonstrate icing the eggs with greetings.
She's less happy about having to say anything. "I didn't know I was
going to have to talk," she wails. I'm secretly rejoicing
that all I have to do is talk, and not actually
demonstrate anything, (let alone have a go at icing an egg
- now there's an idea, thank God they didn't think of asking us to
swap jobs). When the cameras roll I try hard to answer Andrea's
questions without being drawn into moaning about the galloping
commercialism and consumerism and people forgetting the real
meaning of the Christian festival, which she would clearly prefer.
I am so busy doing this, that I fail to notice she is not asking
any of the right questions that will give me the chance to tell
viewers that Easter is really about God's victory, and the triumph
of Life and hope over Death and despair.
Memo To Self: Remember not to watch Six Life on Friday
evening.
To the Eucharist with the Blessing of Oils and Renewal of Ministerial Commitment, at Christ Church Cathedral, together with a good many of the other clergy and licensed workers in the Oxford Diocese. It was one of those moments when I muse from time to time, if a bomb were to fall on the Cathedral, how would the Church of England in this diocese cope? Answer: Probably very well. I haven't been to this service for a couple of years, because it's always on a Tuesday; yet when I do go I always come away thinking: Why don't I go every year? It is moving, encouraging, affirming, challenging by turns, as we renew our acceptance of the charge first laid upon us at ordination.
The bishop addresses the priests
Priests, at your ordination, you took authority to watch over and care for God's people, to absolve and bless them in his name, to proclaim the gospel of salvation, and to minister the sacraments of his New Covenant. Will you continue as faithful stewards of the mysteries of God, preaching the Gospel of Christ, and ministering his holy sacraments?
And we reply
By the help of God, we will.
How can I do this job? How can anyone do this job? The simple answer is, we can't. Many times in the service bring tears to the eyes, for the hugeness of the calling, the immenseness of the grace that chooses to work through such channels.
Ontological questions from yesterday remind me of a story about a Philosophy examination - possibly even at the august older of the two universities in this city - which allegedly included the question: 'Is this a question?' Full marks were (allegedly, again) awarded to the candidate whose complete answer read 'Is this an answer?' No, I don't really believe it, either.
The slog of Holy Week begins in earnest, and for those who have to live it full-time and professionally, as it were, it gets to be pretty gruelling: emotionally, psychically and spiritually (and probably physically, by the end, too.) I liken it best to a kind of roller-coaster of the soul, because you are looking at so many facets of the Story in its horror, pain, love, triumph, trying to respond appropriately and - What? I was going to say something like, enable, or facilitate, or channel, or guide, or train, the involvement and response of the congregation. But none of these is correct. All I think I can do, is live it and suffer it with the rest.
Only, one doesn't, quite. Because the process of having to prepare to do so, means moving backwards and forwards through the story, thinking about what you'll be singing and doing next Sunday, at the same time as what you'll be saying tomorrow evening or on Friday. So the pastor doesn't actually live Holy Week in sync with anyone else. If this is true (and I'm not entirely sure this is what it is) it might explain why it feels so much more fraught.
An article in The Observer about blogs and blogging prompts the ontological question: Is this a blog? Well, if this is the definition:
The phrase 'blog' is an abbreviation of web log and is best defined as a frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and web links. It may combine diary, rant, noticeboard, photo gallery and CD playlists. It may be simple black-on-white page of text or the text may be the excuse for the graphic design. There are no rules to blogging, but most tend to contain lists of other favourite blogs, and often a facility for the reader to comment on what they have just read.
then it is, I guess. It also seems to fit with a FAQ on Blogger, What is a Blog?:
A blog is a web page made up of usually short, frequently updated posts that are arranged chronologically - like a what's new page or a journal. The content and purposes of blogs varies greatly - from links and commentary about other web sites, to news about a company/person/idea, to diaries, photos, poetry, mini-essays, project updates, even fiction.
This online diary is not actually produced and maintained using any of the common blogging tools like Blogger or Movable Type. Why not? Because I don't want the adverts you get in Blogger, and my web-hosting package doesn't run to the CGI stuff required by Movable Type. So instead, this blog is written using the equivalent of hand-set movable type: edited with vim and FTPed with KBear. Mind you, your old-style craftsman-printers (now all made redundant by computer typesetting) were the princes of the printing industry.
Enough of this navel-gazing! (I suppose it may be of some interest to future online researchers: "My DPhil dissertation was on 'The Varieties of Blogging Architecture and Technologies in Early 21st Century Off-Shore Northern Europe'.")
Esther and I had lunch alone together as Alison and Naomi were both away. Sometimes (often?) conversation is better when there are just two. She was telling me about the Purple Turtle where she and friends were dancing last night. "Where is the Purple Turtle, exactly?" I asked. "It's down an alleyway between Lush and gap." I don't even know where those places are! I only just know (since I really am living in the 21st century) that they are shops. It appears that the generations - or is it maybe the genders, as well - have quite different geographies of the same town. Perhaps there is the germ of a DPhil thesis here, too.
I said, "It must be behind the Oxford Union then" (of which, dear reader, I am a life member). "I don't know about that," she said. According to the website, it is a part of the Union. So there, Esther!
The forecast rain duly came and it wasn't anything like as good weather as yesterday. Most of the morning taken up with a rehearsal for tomorrow's dramatic presentation of the events of Palm Sunday. After that, spent a good bit of the afternoon starting a new page about Tom and Annie's engagement, and The Wedding Plans - to be updated as and when. This takes quite a bit of time. I am not as adept as I hope to become. But quite proud that I manage to get the page (small as it is at present) into valid XHTML, and duly validated by the World Wide Web Consortium's HTML Validator. This may not impress unduly, perhaps. Suffice it to say that most of my pages so far are written in HTML 4.01, which is fine, but XHTML is supposed to be the standard that will be superseding it in time. I suppose by the time it does, there will be utilities that will translate pages automatically, instead of us having to do it page by page, manually.
Alison had one of those excellent days today, when having made arrangements to work at home rather than go into college, she discovered she could work just as well at The Flat, so she drove over there late morning. How clever of her to choose a nearly perfect day for weather, so she was able to enjoy a good walk in the afternoon before the forecast change to rain on Saturday.
I, meanwhile, had a usual Friday of shopping for groceries as a short break from getting ready for Sunday worship, and making time for a visit because Sunday doesn't really want to be prepared for. I lost a parishioner however - someone I last visited in hospital but now don't know the whereabouts of. No answer from ringing the doorbell at home; no news of her at the hospital where I last saw her; and the (not immediate) neighbours I called on also didn't know anything. This is slightly embarrassing.
Some rather heavy jokes today on various Linux sites, about e.g. Linus Torvalds beginning to charge a licensing fee to everyone using Linux. I used to think humour and light-heartedness were characteristics of the Linux world. Today makes me not quite so sure. Maybe I'm being too serious myself.
I spent part of today at The Convent, being the speaker at the Semi-Quiet Day. (Given that I was the speaker, the semi- qualifies 'Day' rather than 'Quiet' - but in any case it was only 3 hours, including a break for lunch.) It's become expected that I should tell Bible stories, and I was right in surmising that any change in that plan would have been unpopular. So I chose four Lenten stories and told them, then commented briefly on how they spoke to me, invited contributions from the listeners, and left a time for quiet. All very well received, and I managed to recall and retell the stories pretty well, so was pleased with myself. There were 26 people there. The dear Sisters said: 'This is more than we usually get; they all come to hear you, you know.' I bet they say that to all the young men.
Living To Tell The Tale > The Online Diary > April 2004